Introduction to Niche Theory and Speciation

This special collection, which is split between the May and July issues, originated from the workshop ‘Niche Theory and Speciation’ (http://nichews.elte.hu). The meeting took place at Keszthely (Lake Balaton) in Hungary in August 2011, and was organized by Géza Meszéna, Åke Brännström, Ulf Dieckmann, Gabriella Magyar, Liz Pásztor, and András Szilágyi. Funding was provided by the European Science Foundation in the framework of the Research Networking Programme ‘Frontiers of Speciation Research’, and also by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria). The word ‘niche’ notoriously lacks a broadly accepted definition; and we did not attempt to enforce any particular definition for this special collection. Instead, the non-specific title ‘Niche Theory and Speciation’ encouraged contributors to interpret and study niches in the manner they felt most useful and informative for their study system of question. Although the various papers yielded a diversity of interpretations and applications, all authors clearly subscribe to the idea that niches involve adaptation to different conditions (environments, habitats, resources), and that this adaptation can drive speciation – although not inevitably. This special collection represents a celebration and exploration of this process in its various guises. As editors, our goal was to attract the best possible set of papers. We therefore expressly left it open to authors to decide the papers they wished to contribute. Some of the papers are written summaries of work presented at the 2011 meeting, whereas others grew out of discussions during and after the event. We also solicited some additional papers from investigators who had been invited to the original meeting but who were unable to attend. We also strove for a lively mix of empirical and theoretical papers given that progress in the field will undoubtedly require effort from both sides. In the end, all papers emphasized the connection between ecology and evolution, but these links emerged naturally rather than being forced by the editors.